Reversing sensor display frozen for 10 seconds; nearly damaged the car

[thegruf]

As I understand the original post, the display froze while displaying no obstacles. That's "all clear."

almost right, it actually displayed a sensed object initially but then didnt update, I didn't make this clear oroginally.

And yes, I mostly reverse without reference to the display as a point of personal driving pride, occasionally though I will use the display to edge up to object as the car is pretty big for many UK parking spaces, I was just almost caught out by the display not updating, nothing wrong with the sensors.

The parallel park was my own fault really, the feature got added and the second time I tried it I blindly trusted it on what was almost certainly a low contrast kerb, though it seemd quite confident right up to the graunch. If the car collects voice data, then Elon will have had to reach for the urban dictionary to interpret the ensuing profanities. My fault even if I am a bit miffed, might ask the SC if they fell like making a contribution though.

As for piling in , dont worry folks I have a thick skin, add a bit more humor though so we all get a laugh!
Cheers all.

 

[mikeash]

almost right, it actually displayed a sensed object initially but then didnt update, I didn't make this clear oroginally.

As for piling in , dont worry folks I have a thick skin, add a bit more humor though so we all get a laugh!

Gotcha. Still fits, I'd say, assuming the object it displayed was distant. It's basically saying "there's something, but you have room" continuously in that case.

I'd pile in, but after your post, I don't trust you to drive!

 

[ecarfan]

The sad thing is that the next generation of drivers will probably rely on the gadgets and gizmos way too much, and lose the skillset to actually parallel park themselves or even reverse into a space without these automated tools..

Is it "sad" that almost all cars have automatic transmissions and very few new drivers learn to use a clutch? To go back further in time, is it "sad" that manual transmissions are synchromesh and no one has to learn to double clutch? To go back even further...

I've never started a car with a hand crank. Shall a tear also be cried about how we've become over-reliant on the starter motor?

Touché.

 

[jfoxny]

sw 2.28.60

reversed into a parking bay (manually).
Was keeping half an eye on the mirror and half on the display.

Just realized in time to prevent the car hitting a 30 inch bollard that the sensor display was frozen and not updating.

Stopped the car and a few seconds later it sprung into life and said STOP!

This did not seem to be a sensor issue, but the software seemed to be busy doing something else before it swapped back to the reversing "app". Rebooted (which I seem to have to do far too often) to try to clear any lockups in the sw.

I've learned not to fully trust the auto-reverse parking after it scuffed the two nearside wheels to my absolute frustration as I hate that sort of thing. Seems reversing must also be treated with caution.

Bit disappointed really and bet Tesla wont pay to recondition the wheels, lucky they didnt get asked to pay for a rear fender too.

Anyone else have similar issues?

Yes, this same thing happened to me. I was parking in a garage near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. I reversed into the spot and everything worked fine. However, when I opened my door I noticed that I was somewhat crooked. So, I closed the door pulled forward and then backed up into the spot again.

The second time, however, the sensors did not work as they should and I ended up hitting the wall behind me. After I hit the wall the sensors sprung into life and said STOP! In my case it also seemed like the car was "doing something else" rather than the sensor not working. Perhaps it didn't think I was parking or something having been parked previously. Those sensors only seem to come on when the car "thinks" your trying to park. Hasn't happened since, but, I'm super careful now with parking in situations like that.

Surprisingly there was no damage to the car. I hit it very slowly but I did make contact.

 

[CME]

Same thing happened to me today, I wasn't as lucky as you were and backed into the side of my Volvo
Frozen video in backup camera

 

[thegruf]

now I consider myself fortunate. Sorry for your incident.
It's actually why I posted perhaps to help others be aware and to avoid such frustration and expense.
Perhaps if you show the SC this thread they might make a conciliatory gesture.

 

[AMPd]

If parking sensors freeze while displaying an old "all clear" message, then effectively they are giving an all clear.

No
The colors around the vehicle on the dash change color the closer you get, as well as change the distance.
If you're getting closer to an object and the color ot the distance isn't changing aka frozen, then it's not giving you the all clear

 

[whitex]

No
The colors around the vehicle on the dash change color the closer you get, as well as change the distance.
If you're getting closer to an object and the color ot the distance isn't changing aka frozen, then it's not giving you the all clear

I beg to differ. When I'm backing into my garage and there is a wall next to my car, the sensors show it at some distance. Typically I pull in along the wall with some storage shelves, so the distance is not changing if I am pulling in straight parallel to the wall. If I am misaligned and the sensors keep showing the the wall 16" away all the time, that is an "all clear" until I hit the wall.

 

[Mike K]

As per Mikeash earlier in the thread, the issue whether they always work is a different issue than how they fail. If the sensors died and the car just said "no sensors", that's a reliability issue. If the sensors dies but display "clear path ahead", that's a safety issue. So yes, you can drive a car without the sensors, or even without a rear camera (just need to make sure you don't lift your butt off the seat while backing up or the car will put itself in park), but if the sensor shows all clear and/or the camera is on a 2s delay, you're likely to hit something due to that failure, not because you can't back up a car without sensors or camera. Bottom line is this, nothing is perfect, parts die. They design should however be such that the failure mode does not create a safety issue.

I don't think you fully understood my point because your response to my post is in complete agreement with me.

 

[AMPd]

I beg to differ. When I'm backing into my garage and there is a wall next to my car, the sensors show it at some distance. Typically I pull in along the wall with some storage shelves, so the distance is not changing if I am pulling in straight parallel to the wall. If I am misaligned and the sensors keep showing the the wall 16" away all the time, that is an "all clear" until I hit the wall.

I agree when something is parallel next to you the distance should stay the same when backing next to it, but op almost backed into something, when you're inching up to an object, distance on the display will change.
And if it doesn't and common sense is telling you you're close to the object and sensors are still not warning you... Do you get out and look or keep backing up your expensive vehicle because "the sensors didn't tell me to stop"

 

[DSBS4]

I wonder what the logs would say. Would the logs show that the sensors were working properly and it was user error or would it show that the sensors stopped working?

If it's the former, I'd start worrying about Tesla's logs in regards to AP accidents and their belief in their logs.

 

[stopcrazypp]

As I understand the original post, the display froze while displaying no obstacles. That's "all clear."

I think a better analogy is when you have a spotter while backing up (as is common for trucks) and they had a brain fart and paused for 2 seconds and you crashed the truck.

 

[CME]

I wonder what the logs would say. Would the logs show that the sensors were working properly and it was user error or would it show that the sensors stopped working?

If it's the former, I'd start worrying about Tesla's logs in regards to AP accidents and their belief in their logs.

Pretty sure sensor wasn't the issue here. it's the CPU that was stuck processing something else, e.g. memory swapping etc, as if time slowed time from CPU's perspective.

For a real-time system, this is not supposed to happen. If it's not a bug, then the whole system is fundamentally unsound.

 

[mikeash]

I think a better analogy is when you have a spotter while backing up (as is common for trucks) and they had a brain fart and paused for 2 seconds and you crashed the truck.

Yeah, that's almost exactly the same situation. It's better not to have a spotter at all than to have one who gets distracted and stops watching while you think they're watching.

For a real-time system, this is not supposed to happen. If it's not a bug, then the whole system is fundamentally unsound.

There are many systems in the car, some realtime and some not. The safety-critical stuff like Autopilot presumably is. The displays pretty clearly aren't. This is unfortunately a case where the displays end up needing some realtime capability.

I assume it can't be outright fixed since the displays are too far gone into non-realtime territory. They might be able to at least work around it. One possibility would be to add some obvious animation to the screen, so that if it freezes you can tell. Another would be to turn on some really aggressive watchdog timer while in this mode, so that if the system does freeze up momentarily, it'll reboot and make it clear that something went wrong. Neither workaround would be great, but they might be good enough.

 

[CME]

One possibility would be to add some obvious animation to the screen, so that if it freezes you can tell. Another would be to turn on some really aggressive watchdog timer while in this mode, so that if the system does freeze up momentarily, it'll reboot and make it clear that something went wrong. Neither workaround would be great, but they might be good enough.

Using animation probably won't work because if the whole screen freezes, nothing (including warning/animation) gets updated in time. Rebooting makes sense. Or a watchdog thread should blacken/disable the display temporarily -- assuming screen brightness control is independent of video rendering and can be controlled from a separate process.